Ezekiel 1:1-28, NLT
Ezekiel 1
A Vision of Living Beings
1On July 31*1:1a Hebrew On the fifth day of the fourth month, of the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar. A number of dates in Ezekiel can be cross-checked with dates in surviving Babylonian records and related accurately to our modern calendar. This event occurred on July 31, 593 b.c. of my thirtieth year,*1:1b Or in the thirtieth year. while I was with the Judean exiles beside the Kebar River in Babylon, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
4As I looked, I saw a great storm coming from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber.*1:4 Or like burnished metal; also in 1:27.
10Each had a human face in the front, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle at the back.
13The living beings looked like bright coals of fire or brilliant torches, and lightning seemed to flash back and forth among them.
15As I looked at these beings, I saw four wheels touching the ground beside them, one wheel belonging to each.
19When the living beings moved, the wheels moved with them. When they flew upward, the wheels went up, too.
22Spread out above them was a surface like the sky, glittering like crystal.
26Above this surface was something that looked like a throne made of blue lapis lazuli. And on this throne high above was a figure whose appearance resembled a man.